Singapore's $170 Million Climate Defense For Luxury Stores Shows Protections Aren't Equal

Developed nations are spending billions to guard against threats from extreme weather, as poorer regions struggle to win adaptation funding.

The Stamford detention tank in Singapore in July.

Photographer: Aparna Nori/Bloomberg

Even in a city-state renowned for its glitzy excess, Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping strip stands out. More than 7 million visitors a year flock to gleaming malls along a 2.2-kilometer (1.4 miles) boulevard that houses Hermès to Dior stores, exclusive restaurants and elegant rooftop gardens.

It’s a global hub for tourism and high-end retail that’s boomed along with the nation’s rise, reshaping a swath of nutmeg plantations and pepper farms first cultivated over a century ago.

While transformed, Orchard Road – which lies in a natural depression – continues to battle the same threat that challenged mid-19th-century agriculturalists: flooding. Singapore’s response has been to spend hundreds of millions on new infrastructure, some of which — including a vast subterranean storage tank — has never been fully used since it was completed in 2018.

The project highlights the ability of richer nations to invest in climate defenses against low-probability threats, while developing countries lack funds to adapt to climate change.

A dramatic storm in June 2010 delivered about three-quarters of a typical month’s rainfall in two hours, causing around S$23 million ($17 million) of damage.Photographer: Jeffry Lim/AP Photo

A dramatic storm in June 2010 delivered about three-quarters of a typical month’s rainfall in two hours around Orchard Road, where retail rents rank among the world’s most expensive, causing around S$23 million ($17 million) of damage. The next year, a 15-year old died in an extreme downpour in June and supercars were damaged as the basement of an exclusive residential building was inundated. A further incident that December sent water coursing through a Starbucks Corp. outlet.

The nation forecasts average rainfall volumes to continue to increase, and for episodes of extreme downpours to become more frequent, according to Singapore’s Third National Climate Change Study, published in January.

A S$227 million, four-year project completed in 2018 has been intended to prepare for those threats, adding a 2-kilometer-long diversion canal to channel stormwater away from the shopping street and the Stamford Detention Tank, which sits about 30 meters underneath the city’s iconic Botanic Gardens and is capable of holding 38,000 cubic meters, the equivalent of 15 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Since it was unveiled almost six years ago, the huge tank hasn’t been required. Workers occasionally visit to spray anti-mosquito oil or to haul out a wandering monitor lizard, and on a recent afternoon the interior was largely empty aside from a few small puddles of runoff and grime.

“What we wanted was better long-term flood protection for Orchard Road,” said Zaki Mohamedzen, an assistant director at PUB, Singapore’s national water agency, which led the development. The tank hasn’t been needed because it’s additional protection on top of the diversion canal, which “has been very effective,” he said.

The Stamford Detention Tank is capable of holding 38,000 cubic meters of water, the equivalent of 15 Olympic-size swimming pools.Photographer: Aparna Nori/Bloomberg

Authorities in Singapore have spent around S$2 billion on drainage infrastructure in the past decade, including the Stamford tank and diversion canal, fighting the nation’s origins as a low-lying swampland that frequently experiences tropical downpours. Flood-prone areas used to account for about 5% of the country’s land; now, it’s less than 0.05%.

“Singapore is extremely affluent. Many countries in the Global South would not be in this position,” said Petra Tschakert, a Perth-based professor studying climate adaptation and justice at Curtin University. “It is absolutely inconceivable that least developed countries would be able to pay for adaptation infrastructure exclusively through their own finances.”

Zaki MohamedzenPhotographer: Aparna Nori/Bloomberg

The gap for developing countries between the costs of their adaptation needs and available financing is estimated at between $194 billion and $366 billion a year, according to a UN Environment Programme report last year. China, India and other large developing nations last month made a renewed demand ahead of this year’s COP29 climate summit in November for richer economies to boost climate financing and direct trillions of dollars a year to poorer regions.

Global losses from flooding have totaled more than $340 billion since 2019, of which only about a fifth was insured, Munich Re data shows. Climate change is contributing to more frequent occurrences of extreme precipitation and disasters, according to the insurer. Warmer air retains more moisture and for every degree Celsius that temperatures rise, the atmosphere can hold as much as 7% more vapor — which can then be unleashed as flash floods.

Outflow pipes on the service level of Stamford detention tank.Photographer: Aparna Nori/Bloomberg

Part of preparing for those extremes is investing in programs or assets that aren’t used often, according to Vladan Babovic, a professor at the National University of Singapore’s department of civil and environmental engineering.

“You multiply probability with the consequence of what happens if you’re not protected,” when considering the potential loss from flood damage, he said. While some scenarios can be extremely rare, what’s important is the potential for them to become a significant disaster. “This is heavy investment, but it is necessary,” Babovic said.

Global Losses From Flash Floods

Losses from flash floods have been rising rapidly

Source: Munich Re

As dramatic rainfall events increase in frequency and intensity, countries that don’t have Singapore’s resources might go for “lower hanging fruits” like avoiding flood-prone areas or requiring new construction projects to take account of potential disaster risks, according to Swenja Surminski, a managing director at risk management firm Marsh McLennan.

The problem is that climate change-driven flash floods are much more erratic and difficult to predict compared with traditional flooding events, which have typically been tied to overflowing rivers, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re. “It’s harder to protect against flash floods,” he said. “Any area can be affected, but you cannot protect all areas.”

Singapore isn’t alone in spending on efforts to counter low-likelihood threats.

The Maeslant storm surge barrier in the Netherlands, completed in 1997 at a cost of about €450 million ($487 million), was fully utilized for the first time in December. Hong Kong has a HK$678 million ($87 million) underground stormwater storage system beneath its Happy Valley Racecourse, designed to handle infrequent major floods.

The Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel in Kasukabe on the outskirts of Tokyo.Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg

In 2006, Japan completed a 230 billion yen ($1.5 billion) project to add an intricate network of concrete tunnels and vaults on the outskirts of Tokyo, capable of withstanding a once-in-a-century scale flood.

Deep underneath Singapore, the city’s defenses are ready to protect Orchard Road — and a 630-hectare (2.4 square mile) — catchment area, whenever an extreme storm next takes place and overwhelms regular infrastructure, said the PUB’s Zaki, inside the cavernous tank. “In Singapore where land is so scarce, we have to find alternative ways,” he said.

This article was originally published on Bloomberg Online News. Its inclusion on this website is solely for education purposes.